Currently there is no known system or method available for visualizing in 3D the muscle forces exerted by the human body in real time. Most rehabilitation clinics and medical research institutes use specialized therapeutic programs, based on cause related classifications of movement disorders, but there is no known way that they can view the body force arrays in real time as it usually takes many hours and days of calculations to derive those parameters and the results are numerical or graphical and not intuitive to the viewer.
Motion Capture is a term for a variety of techniques, and the technology has existed for many years in a variety of applications. The aim of motion capture is to create three-dimensional (3D) animation and natural simulations in a performance oriented manner. In the entertainment industry, motion capture allows an operator to use computer-generated characters. Motion capture can be used to create complex motion, using the full range of human movements and allow also inanimate objects to move realistically. Some motion capture systems provide real-time feedback of the data and allow the operator to immediately determine whether the motion works sufficiently. Motion capture can be applied to full body motion as well as to hand animation, facial animation and real time lip sync. Motion capture is also used in medical, simulation, engineering and ergonomic applications, and in feature films, advertising, TV and 3D computer games.
Kinematics is the process of calculating the position in space of the end of a linked structure, given the angles of all the joints. Inverse Kinematics does the reverse. Given the end point of the structure, it calculates the angles of the joints needed to be in to achieve that end point. This process is used in robotics, 3D computer animation and some engineering applications.
Dynamics is the process of calculating the accelerations of a linked structure in space, given the set of internal and external forces acting on the structure. Inverse dynamics does the opposite. Given the accelerations of the structure, and a set of measured forces, it calculates the unknown internal forces needed to produce those accelerations. The result is typically provided as a set of joint torques and resultant joint forces.
What is needed, therefore, are techniques for creating a single computational pipeline of all the described steps in real time. Creating for the first time the capability to view muscle forces as they occur.